Tinder may have a reputation as a hook up app, but it turns out that’s not all it’s good for.
On the latest episode of its podcast DTR [Define The Relationship], host Jane Marie spoke to two guests who had found two unexpected (and very different) uses for the app that had nothing to do with dating – or sex.
For travel writer Luke, Tinder turned out to be the key to unlocking the most incredible travel experience of his career – a Thailand attraction known only to very few locals.
Listen: The latest episode of Define The Relationship: Unexpected Places. Post continues after audio.
“This guy sat next to me who called himself Akhbar, I think he was a jewel smuggler. He told me about this totally undiscovered temple called [something like] Whak Lai Glan Wan’,” he said.
Unable to speak Thai, Luke wrote down the phonetic version of the name and then asked around his circle of fellow travellers and expats. No-one had ever heard of it before, which led many to claim that it couldn’t possibly exist.
Unsure whether he even had the name right, googling and further research threw up absolutely nothing – which only made him more determined to discover the hidden gem. So he turned to Tinder, hoping to find locals in the area that could speak both Thai and English.
Swiping right, he sent everyone the same message, “Hi, I’m a travel writer from America and I’m trying to find this temple. Do you have any information about it?”
“Lo and behold, this woman I matched with called May knew about it, giving me the name of the bus to catch on the way to the temple and wrote the name in Thai characters as a screenshot so I could show people,” he said.
This enabled him to meet a chain of other people, who each brought him one step closer to reaching the beautiful, glistening undiscovered temple, which a day (and a dozen strangers) later he did. He says in his career as a travel writer it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Turns out using Tinder to improve your travel experience isn’t actually that uncommon.
Image: iStock
"I use it all the time while travelling to get a local's guide to the city with the best cafes, bars and clubs etc. Sometimes you get a free tour guide out of it too!" Natalia tells me.
"I'll match with people who have similar interests and tastes (music, clothing etc) as me because they're probably into what I'd be into and can point me in the way of places or events that I'd enjoy."
It's much easier - and well received - than you might expect.
"I'll generally compliment them on something that we have a shared interest in, so if they're playing guitars in one picture I'll be all 'You're a guitarist?! That's awesome! I play drums. Are there any cool gigs on this week? I'm only in town for three days'.
Listen: You probably consider Bali a great holiday, but what about moving your family there permanently? Meet the parents who did. Post continues after audio.
"That would usually spark a conversation about music and venues and they'd be like 'Oh this thing is happening at this bar on Friday night' and then I'll ask them to share the Facebook event."
She says it's exactly the same as connecting with people in real life.
"It's a natural instinct for people to be helpful and share insider tips and make themselves feel or appear like an expert."
And while a platonic right swipe has the potential to improve your holiday, in Jennifer's case it ended up saving a life.
After matching and chatting with a man named Rich O'Dea, the pair met up for their first date at an Imagine Dragons concert in Tampa, Florida.
As they were going through the usual small talk waiting for the concert to start, O'Dea mentioned he was training for the New York City marathon as part of a team to raise money for the PKD [Polycystic Kidney Disease] foundation they'd set up in order to raise funds for Erica, a friend's wife who was suffering from the life-threatening genetic disease.
"[Before that conversation] I had no idea what it was, I had never known anyone who had any sort of kidney failure or issue," Jennifer told the podcast.
When O'Dea mentioned that Erica, a mum of two teenage children, had just months to live as she was unable to find a matching kidney donor, Jennifer instantly offered to help in any way that she could.
Listen: What organ donation is really like, from both sides. Post continues after audio.
While the romance didn't go any further (Jennifer got back with her ex boyfriend) she went and got tested at the hospital to see if she was a match. She was.
"I was really excited, I think I might have cried. I was so thrilled. Just because I had been talking about it with my friends and family about how excited I was to possibly be able to do this for somebody," she said.
Despite hiccups along the ways - like having to pee in a portable jug for 24 hours THREE times because the results came back "strange" - Jennifer went through the long and invasive process of testing before the donation could even occur.
Several previous matches had been found for Erica, but had dropped out during the process for one reason or another. Jennifer saw it all the way through.
It was an incredible match, given that kidney donations from strangers are very rare (about one in 50,000) because it's such a gruelling process.
It's now one year since the donation took place and Erica has had no complications, with life (and her health) looking way more positive than it did before.
Talk about an unexpected connection.
Have you ever used Tinder for something unexpected?